[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":823},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails":3,"navigation-en-us":41,"banner-en-us":452,"footer-en-us":462,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Sid Sijbrandij":701,"blog-related-posts-en-us-why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails":719,"blog-promotions-en-us":761,"next-steps-en-us":813},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"authors":8,"body":10,"category":11,"categorySlug":11,"config":12,"content":16,"date":20,"description":17,"extension":25,"externalUrl":26,"featured":14,"heroImage":19,"isFeatured":14,"meta":27,"navigation":28,"path":29,"publishedDate":20,"rawbody":30,"seo":31,"slug":13,"stem":35,"tagSlugs":36,"tags":39,"template":15,"updatedDate":26,"__hash__":40},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails.yml","Why we're sticking with Ruby on Rails",[7],"sid-sijbrandij",[9],"Sid Sijbrandij","\nWhen David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails ([interview](https://corecursive.com/045-david-heinemeier-hansson-software-contrarian/)), he was guided by his experience with both PHP and Java. On the one hand, he didn’t like the way the verbosity and rigidness of Java made Java web frameworks complex and difficult to use, but appreciated their structural integrity. On the other hand, he loved the initial approachability of PHP, but was less fond of the quagmires that such projects tended to turn into.\n\n![Ruby vs. Java](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby1.png)\n\nIt seems like these are exclusive choices: You either get approachable and messy or well-structured and hard to use, pick your poison. We used to make a very similar, and similarly hard, distinction between server-class operating systems such as Unix, which were stable but hard to use, and client operating systems such as Windows and MacOS that were approachable but crashed a lot.\n\nEveryone accepted this dichotomy as God-given until NeXT put a beautiful, approachable and buttery-smooth GUI on top of a solid Unix base. Nowadays, “server-class” Unix runs not just beautiful GUI desktops, but also most phones and smart watches.\n\nSo it turned out that approachability and crashiness were not actually linked except by historical accident, and the same turns out to be true for approachability and messiness in web frameworks: They are independent axes.\n\n![approachability and messiness](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby2.png)\n\nAnd these independent axes opened up a very desirable open spot in the lower right hand corner: an approachable, well-structured web framework.\nWith its solid, metaprogrammable Smalltalk heritage and good Unix integration, Ruby proved to be the perfect vehicle for DHH to fill that desirable bottom right corner of the table with Rails: an extremely approachable, productive and well-structured web framework. \n\n![a well-structured framework](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby3.png)\n \nWhen GitLab co-founder Dmitriy Zaporozhets decided he wanted to work on software for running his (and your) version control server, he also came from a PHP background. But instead of sticking with the familiar, he chose Rails. Dmitry's choice may have been prescient or fortuitous, but it has served GitLab extremely well, in part because David succeeded in achieving his goals for Rails: approachability with good architecture.\n\n## Why modular?\n\nIn the preceding section, it was assumed as a given that modularity is a desirable property, but as we also saw it is dangerous to just assume things.  So why, and in what contexts, is modularity actually desirable?\n\nIn his 1971 paper [\"On the Criteria to be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules\"](https://prl.ccs.neu.edu/img/p-tr-1971.pdf), David L. Parnas gave the following (desired) benefits of a modular system:\n\n- Development time should “be shortened because separate groups would work on each module with little need for communication.”\n- It should be possible to make “drastic changes or improvements in one module without changing others.”\n- It should be possible to study the system one module at a time.\n\nThe importance of reducing the need for communication was later highlighted by Fred Brooks in _[The Mythical Man Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)_, with the additional communication overhead one of the primary reasons for the old saying that \"adding people to a late software project makes it later.\" \n\n## We don’t need microservices\n\nModularity has generally been as elusive as it is highly sought after, with the default architecture of most systems being the [Big Ball of Mud](http://laputan.org/mud/). It is therefore understandable that designers took inspiration from arguably the largest software system in existence: the World Wide Web, which is modular by necessity, it cannot function any other way.\n\nOrganizing your local software systems using separate processes, microservices that are combined using [REST](https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/fielding_dissertation.pdf) architectural style does help enforce module boundaries, via the operating system, but comes at significant costs. It is a very heavy-handed approach for achieving modularity.\n\nThe difficulties and costs of running what is now a gratuitously distributed system are significant, with some of the performance and reliability issues documented in the well-known [fallacies of distributed computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing). In short, the performance and reliability costs are significant, as function calls that take nanoseconds and never fail are replaced with network ops that are three to six orders of magnitude slower and do fail. Failures become much harder to diagnose if they must be traced across multiple services with very little tooling support.\nYou need a fairly sophisticated DevOps organization to successfully run microservices. This doesn't really make a difference if you run at a scale that requires that sophistication anyhow, but it is very likely that [you are not Google](https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/you-are-not-google-84912cf44afb?gi=1b82f8ef279a).\n\nBut even if you think you can manage all that, it is important to note that all this accidental complexity is on top of the original essential complexity of your problem, microservices do nothing to reduce complexity. And even the hoped-for modularity improvements are not in the least guaranteed, typically what happens instead is that you get a [distributed ball of mud](http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/2014/07/06/distributed_big_balls_of_mud.html).\n\n## Monorails\n\nBy making good architecture approachable and productive, Rails has allowed GitLab to develop a [modular monolith](https://medium.com/@dan_manges/the-modular-monolith-rails-architecture-fb1023826fc4). A modular monolith is the exact opposite of a distributed ball of mud: a well-structured, well-architected, highly modular program that runs as a single process and is as [boring](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#boring-solutions) as possible.\n\nAlthough structuring GitLab as a monolith has been extremely beneficial for us, we are not dogmatic about that structure. Architecture follows needs, not the other way around. And while Rails is excellent technology for our purposes, it does have a few drawbacks, one of them being performance. Luckily, only a tiny part of most codebases is actually performance critical. We use our own [gitaly](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.gitlab.com/administration/gitaly/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1656441057979077&usg=AOvVaw11r4iMGjvs6PrtTJEkeTbO/) daemon written in Go to handle actual git operations, and [PostgreSQL](https://thenewstack.io/two-sizes-fit-most-postgresql-and-clickhouse/) for non-repository persistence.\n\n## Open Core\n\nLast but not least, our modular monolith turns [our](/blog/gitlab-is-open-core-github-is-closed-source/) [Open Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model) business model from being just a nice theory into a practical [reality](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/gitlab-jumps-in-nasdaq-debut-after-pricing-ipo-above-expected-range.html). Although Rails does not accomplish this by itself, that would be our wonderful contributors and engineers, it does lay the proper foundations.\n\nIn order to reap the true [benefits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar) of open source, the source code that is made available must be approachable for contributors. In order to maintain architectural integrity in the face of contributions from a wide variety of sources, and to keep a clear demarcation line between the open and closed components, the code must be very well structured. Sound familiar?\n\nWouldn’t it be better to have a proper plugin interface? Or better yet, a services interface modeled on microservices? In a word: no. Not only do these approaches impose deployment and integration hurdles that go far beyond “I made a small change to the source code,\" they often enforce architectural constraints too rigidly. Anticipating all the future extension points is a fool's errand, one that we luckily did not embark on, and do not have to.\n\nWith our boring modular monolith, users and other third-party developers can and do contribute enhancements to the core product, giving us tremendous leverage, coupled with an unbeatable pace and scalability of innovation.\n","devsecops",{"slug":13,"featured":14,"template":15},"why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails",false,"BlogPost",{"title":5,"description":17,"authors":18,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":10,"category":11,"tags":21},"GitLab CEO and co-founder Sid Sijbrandij makes the case for Ruby on Rails.",[9],"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668296/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-ruby.jpg","2022-07-06",[22,23,24],"DevOps","open source","contributors","yml",null,{},true,"/en-us/blog/why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails","seo:\n  title: Why we're sticking with Ruby on Rails\n  description: GitLab CEO and co-founder Sid Sijbrandij makes the case for Ruby on Rails.\n  ogTitle: Why we're sticking with Ruby on Rails\n  ogDescription: GitLab CEO and co-founder Sid Sijbrandij makes the case for Ruby on Rails.\n  noIndex: false\n  ogImage: >-\n    https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668296/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-ruby.jpg\n  ogUrl: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails\n  ogSiteName: https://about.gitlab.com\n  ogType: article\n  canonicalUrls: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails\ncontent:\n  title: Why we're sticking with Ruby on Rails\n  description: GitLab CEO and co-founder Sid Sijbrandij makes the case for Ruby on Rails.\n  authors:\n    - Sid Sijbrandij\n  heroImage: >-\n    https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668296/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-ruby.jpg\n  date: '2022-07-06'\n  body: >\n\n    When David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails\n    ([interview](https://corecursive.com/045-david-heinemeier-hansson-software-contrarian/)),\n    he was guided by his experience with both PHP and Java. On the one hand, he\n    didn’t like the way the verbosity and rigidness of Java made Java web\n    frameworks complex and difficult to use, but appreciated their structural\n    integrity. On the other hand, he loved the initial approachability of PHP,\n    but was less fond of the quagmires that such projects tended to turn into.\n\n\n    ![Ruby vs. Java](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby1.png)\n\n\n    It seems like these are exclusive choices: You either get approachable and\n    messy or well-structured and hard to use, pick your poison. We used to make\n    a very similar, and similarly hard, distinction between server-class\n    operating systems such as Unix, which were stable but hard to use, and\n    client operating systems such as Windows and MacOS that were approachable\n    but crashed a lot.\n\n\n    Everyone accepted this dichotomy as God-given until NeXT put a beautiful,\n    approachable and buttery-smooth GUI on top of a solid Unix base. Nowadays,\n    “server-class” Unix runs not just beautiful GUI desktops, but also most\n    phones and smart watches.\n\n\n    So it turned out that approachability and crashiness were not actually\n    linked except by historical accident, and the same turns out to be true for\n    approachability and messiness in web frameworks: They are independent axes.\n\n\n    ![approachability and\n    messiness](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby2.png)\n\n\n    And these independent axes opened up a very desirable open spot in the lower\n    right hand corner: an approachable, well-structured web framework.\n\n    With its solid, metaprogrammable Smalltalk heritage and good Unix\n    integration, Ruby proved to be the perfect vehicle for DHH to fill that\n    desirable bottom right corner of the table with Rails: an extremely\n    approachable, productive and well-structured web framework. \n\n\n    ![a well-structured\n    framework](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ruby3.png)\n     \n    When GitLab co-founder Dmitriy Zaporozhets decided he wanted to work on\n    software for running his (and your) version control server, he also came\n    from a PHP background. But instead of sticking with the familiar, he chose\n    Rails. Dmitry's choice may have been prescient or fortuitous, but it has\n    served GitLab extremely well, in part because David succeeded in achieving\n    his goals for Rails: approachability with good architecture.\n\n\n    ## Why modular?\n\n\n    In the preceding section, it was assumed as a given that modularity is a\n    desirable property, but as we also saw it is dangerous to just assume\n    things.  So why, and in what contexts, is modularity actually desirable?\n\n\n    In his 1971 paper [\"On the Criteria to be Used in Decomposing Systems into\n    Modules\"](https://prl.ccs.neu.edu/img/p-tr-1971.pdf), David L. Parnas gave\n    the following (desired) benefits of a modular system:\n\n\n    - Development time should “be shortened because separate groups would work\n    on each module with little need for communication.”\n\n    - It should be possible to make “drastic changes or improvements in one\n    module without changing others.”\n\n    - It should be possible to study the system one module at a time.\n\n\n    The importance of reducing the need for communication was later highlighted\n    by Fred Brooks in _[The Mythical Man\n    Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)_, with the\n    additional communication overhead one of the primary reasons for the old\n    saying that \"adding people to a late software project makes it later.\" \n\n\n    ## We don’t need microservices\n\n\n    Modularity has generally been as elusive as it is highly sought after, with\n    the default architecture of most systems being the [Big Ball of\n    Mud](http://laputan.org/mud/). It is therefore understandable that designers\n    took inspiration from arguably the largest software system in existence: the\n    World Wide Web, which is modular by necessity, it cannot function any other\n    way.\n\n\n    Organizing your local software systems using separate processes,\n    microservices that are combined using\n    [REST](https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/fielding_dissertation.pdf)\n    architectural style does help enforce module boundaries, via the operating\n    system, but comes at significant costs. It is a very heavy-handed approach\n    for achieving modularity.\n\n\n    The difficulties and costs of running what is now a gratuitously distributed\n    system are significant, with some of the performance and reliability issues\n    documented in the well-known [fallacies of distributed\n    computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing).\n    In short, the performance and reliability costs are significant, as function\n    calls that take nanoseconds and never fail are replaced with network ops\n    that are three to six orders of magnitude slower and do fail. Failures\n    become much harder to diagnose if they must be traced across multiple\n    services with very little tooling support.\n\n    You need a fairly sophisticated DevOps organization to successfully run\n    microservices. This doesn't really make a difference if you run at a scale\n    that requires that sophistication anyhow, but it is very likely that [you\n    are not\n    Google](https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/you-are-not-google-84912cf44afb?gi=1b82f8ef279a).\n\n\n    But even if you think you can manage all that, it is important to note that\n    all this accidental complexity is on top of the original essential\n    complexity of your problem, microservices do nothing to reduce complexity.\n    And even the hoped-for modularity improvements are not in the least\n    guaranteed, typically what happens instead is that you get a [distributed\n    ball of\n    mud](http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/2014/07/06/distributed_big_balls_of_mud.html).\n\n\n    ## Monorails\n\n\n    By making good architecture approachable and productive, Rails has allowed\n    GitLab to develop a [modular\n    monolith](https://medium.com/@dan_manges/the-modular-monolith-rails-architecture-fb1023826fc4).\n    A modular monolith is the exact opposite of a distributed ball of mud: a\n    well-structured, well-architected, highly modular program that runs as a\n    single process and is as\n    [boring](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#boring-solutions) as\n    possible.\n\n\n    Although structuring GitLab as a monolith has been extremely beneficial for\n    us, we are not dogmatic about that structure. Architecture follows needs,\n    not the other way around. And while Rails is excellent technology for our\n    purposes, it does have a few drawbacks, one of them being performance.\n    Luckily, only a tiny part of most codebases is actually performance\n    critical. We use our own\n    [gitaly](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.gitlab.com/administration/gitaly/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1656441057979077&usg=AOvVaw11r4iMGjvs6PrtTJEkeTbO/)\n    daemon written in Go to handle actual git operations, and\n    [PostgreSQL](https://thenewstack.io/two-sizes-fit-most-postgresql-and-clickhouse/)\n    for non-repository persistence.\n\n\n    ## Open Core\n\n\n    Last but not least, our modular monolith turns\n    [our](/blog/gitlab-is-open-core-github-is-closed-source/) [Open\n    Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model) business model from\n    being just a nice theory into a practical\n    [reality](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/gitlab-jumps-in-nasdaq-debut-after-pricing-ipo-above-expected-range.html).\n    Although Rails does not accomplish this by itself, that would be our\n    wonderful contributors and engineers, it does lay the proper foundations.\n\n\n    In order to reap the true\n    [benefits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar) of\n    open source, the source code that is made available must be approachable for\n    contributors. In order to maintain architectural integrity in the face of\n    contributions from a wide variety of sources, and to keep a clear\n    demarcation line between the open and closed components, the code must be\n    very well structured. Sound familiar?\n\n\n    Wouldn’t it be better to have a proper plugin interface? Or better yet, a\n    services interface modeled on microservices? In a word: no. Not only do\n    these approaches impose deployment and integration hurdles that go far\n    beyond “I made a small change to the source code,\" they often enforce\n    architectural constraints too rigidly. Anticipating all the future extension\n    points is a fool's errand, one that we luckily did not embark on, and do not\n    have to.\n\n\n    With our boring modular monolith, users and other third-party developers can\n    and do contribute enhancements to the core product, giving us tremendous\n    leverage, coupled with an unbeatable pace and scalability of innovation.\n  category: devsecops\n  tags:\n    - DevOps\n    - open source\n    - contributors\nconfig:\n  slug: why-were-sticking-with-ruby-on-rails\n  featured: false\n  template: 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statement",{"items":691},[692,695,698],{"text":693,"config":694},"Terms",{"href":522,"dataGaName":523,"dataGaLocation":470},{"text":696,"config":697},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":532,"dataGaLocation":470,"id":533,"isOneTrustButton":28},{"text":699,"config":700},"Privacy",{"href":527,"dataGaName":528,"dataGaLocation":470},[702],{"id":703,"title":9,"body":26,"config":704,"content":706,"description":26,"extension":25,"meta":714,"navigation":28,"path":715,"seo":716,"stem":717,"__hash__":718},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/sid-sijbrandij.yml",{"template":705},"BlogAuthor",{"role":707,"name":9,"bio":708,"config":709},"Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chair of GitLab Inc.","Sid Sijbrandij (pronounced see-brandy) is the Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chair of GitLab Inc., the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps platform. GitLab's single application helps organizations deliver software faster and more efficiently while strengthening their security and compliance.\n\nSid's career path has been anything but traditional. He spent four years building recreational submarines for U-Boat Worx and while at Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid he worked on the Legis project, which developed several innovative web applications to aid lawmaking. He first saw Ruby code in 2007 and loved it so much that he taught himself how to program. In 2012, as a Ruby programmer, he encountered GitLab and discovered his passion for open source. Soon after, Sid commercialized GitLab, and by 2015 he led the company through Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch. Under his leadership, the company has grown with an estimated 30 million+ registered users from startups to global enterprises.\n\nSid studied at the University of Twente in the Netherlands where he received an M.S. in Management Science. Sid was named one of the greatest minds of the pandemic by Forbes for spreading the gospel of remote work.",{"headshot":710,"twitter":711,"linkedin":712,"ctfId":713},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749665383/Blog/Author%20Headshots/sytses-headshot.png","https://twitter.com/sytses","https://www.linkedin.com/in/sijbrandij","sytses",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/sid-sijbrandij",{},"en-us/blog/authors/sid-sijbrandij","ZdVvFbtL6NKLtKZEjFCVOecdpvuPzX3wmEZBrC6pRWg",[720,732,747],{"content":721,"config":730},{"title":722,"description":723,"authors":724,"heroImage":726,"date":727,"body":728,"category":11,"tags":729},"Teaching software development the easy way using GitLab","Learn how University of Washington lecturer Stephen G. Dame uses GitLab for Education to manage student assignments, distribute course materials, and provide inline code feedback at scale.\n",[725],"Rod Burns","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749659537/Blog/Hero%20Images/display-article-image-0679-1800x945-fy26.png","2026-04-29","For instructors teaching software development, one of the biggest logistical challenges is assignment distribution and feedback at scale. How do you give large groups of students access to course materials, keep solution code private, and still deliver meaningful, contextual feedback without lots of administrative overhead?\n\nThe **[GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/)** provides qualifying institutions with free access to **GitLab Ultimate**, enabling instructors to build professional-grade workflows that mirror real-world software development environments. In this article, you'll learn how Stephen G. Dame, a lecturer in the Computing and Software Systems department at the University of Washington, Bothell, uses simple workflows in GitLab to manage everything from course materials to student feedback across multiple classes.\n\n## From aerospace to academia: Bringing GitLab to the classroom\n\nDame came to academia with years of experience as a chief software engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, where GitLab was used for aerospace projects. As an adjunct professor, he became an early advocate for GitLab within the university, joining the GitLab for Education program to access the full feature set needed to run structured, scalable course workflows.\n\n> **\"GitLab provides the greatest way to organize multiple classes, student assignments, lectures, and code samples through the use of Groups and Subgroups, which I found to be unique to GitLab compared to other repository platforms.\"**\n>\n> - Stephen G. Dame, University of Washington, Bothell\n\n## Set up groups: Build the right structure before writing a line of code\n\nThe foundation of an effective GitLab-based course is a well-planned group hierarchy. GitLab's **[Groups and Subgroups](https://docs.gitlab.com/tutorials/manage_user/#create-the-organization-parent-group-and-subgroups)** allow instructors to model the natural structure of a university department institution, course, and role with precise, inheritable permissions at every level.\n\nDame's structure places the university at the root (`UWTeaching`), with each course occupying its own subgroup (e.g. `css430`). Within each course sit repositories for `lecture-materials` and `code`, alongside dedicated Subgroups for `students` and `graders`. Instructor materials remain private, while student and grader subgroups are configured with controlled permissions so that assignment briefs and solutions are visible only to the right people.\n\n![Screenshot of GitLab group hierarchy — institution, course subgroup, and per-student subgroups](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1777463673/dpxfnitv76pdmvcqtgag.png)\n\nPermissions cascade downward through the hierarchy via **Manage > Members**, allowing Dame to add students to a course's `students` subgroup with `Reporter` access and an expiration date tied to the end of the academic quarter. Students can clone and pull from assignment repositories but cannot push — keeping solution code firmly under instructor control.\n\nStudents are guided to set up SSH keys across all their working environments (local machines, cloud shells, virtual machines) so they can clone repositories and receive weekly updates via `git pull`. They copy relevant code into their own private repositories to manage their own version history.\n\n**Tip for large classes:** For larger cohorts, adding students by hand is impractical. GitLab's REST API lets you automate subgroup creation and membership from a list of usernames. Below is a sample Python script that handles this:\n\n```python\n    import gitlab\n    from datetime import datetime\n\n    # Connect to your GitLab instance\n    gl = gitlab.Gitlab('https://gitlab.com', private_token='YOUR_PRIVATE_TOKEN')\n\n    # Target parent group ID (e.g., the ID for \"css430 > students\")\n    parent_group_id = 12345678\n\n    # Set expiration: typically the beginning of the next month after quarter end\n    expiry_date = '2025-01-01'\n\n    # List of collected student usernames\n    student_list = ['alice_css430', 'bob_css430', 'carol_css430', 'dave_css430', 'eve_css430']\n\n    for username in student_list:\n        try:\n            # 1. Create a personal subgroup for the student\n            subgroup = gl.groups.create({\n                'name': username,\n                'path': username,\n                'parent_id': parent_group_id,\n                'visibility': 'private'\n            })\n\n            # 2. Add student to the new subgroup with Expiration\n            user = gl.users.list(username=username)[0]\n            subgroup.members.create({\n                'user_id': user.id,\n                'access_level': gitlab.const.REPORTER_ACCESS,\n                'expires_at': expiry_date\n            })\n            print(f\"Success: Subgroup created and student added for {username}\")\n        except Exception as e:\n            print(f\"Error processing {username}: {e}\")\n```\nThere is also an [open source project that automates class management](https://gitlab.com/edu-docs/class-management-automation) published by GitLab that provides additional tooling for this workflow.\n## Give feedback where the work actually lives\n\nOnce the structure is in place, the feedback workflow is where GitLab's value becomes most apparent to students. Dame asks students to submit assignments by opening a **[merge request](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/merge_requests/)** in their repository. This gives instructors an immediate, clean diff of everything the student has written.\n![A GitLab merge request showing inline code comment function for an instructor](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1777467468/icclzyglbkwlvfysggbi.png)\nInstructors can click any line of code and leave an **inline comment** — not just flagging what is wrong, but explaining why, and pointing to what to look at next. Students receive this feedback in direct context with their code, which is far more actionable than a comment at the bottom of a submitted document.\n\n## Join GitLab for Education\n\nSetting up your first GitLab assignment takes some initial effort, but once the structure is in place it largely runs itself. The real payoff goes beyond organization: Students graduate having worked daily in an environment that mirrors professional software development, building habits around [version control](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/version-control/) and [code review](https://docs.gitlab.com/development/code_review/) rather than learning them as abstract concepts.\n\nIf you are just getting started, keep it simple. Begin with a single course group, one assignment template, and a basic pipeline. The structure will grow naturally alongside your confidence with the platform.\n\nMake sure to **[sign up for GitLab for Education](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/)** so that you and your students can access all top-tier features, including unlimited reviewers on merge requests, additional compute minutes, and expanded storage.\n\n> [Apply to the GitLab for Education program today](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/).",[623,23],{"featured":14,"template":15,"slug":731},"teaching-software-development-the-easy-way-using-gitlab",{"content":733,"config":745},{"description":734,"authors":735,"heroImage":737,"date":738,"title":739,"body":740,"category":11,"tags":741},"AI-generated code is 34% of development work. Discover how to balance productivity gains with quality, reliability, and security.",[736],"Manav Khurana","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767982271/e9ogyosmuummq7j65zqg.png","2026-01-08","AI is reshaping DevSecOps: Attend GitLab Transcend to see what’s next","AI promises a step change in innovation velocity, but most software teams are hitting a wall. According to our latest [Global DevSecOps Report](https://about.gitlab.com/developer-survey/), AI-generated code now accounts for 34% of all development work. Yet 70% of DevSecOps professionals report that AI is making compliance management more difficult, and 76% say agentic AI will create unprecedented security challenges.\n\nThis is the AI paradox: AI accelerates coding, but software delivery slows down as teams struggle to test, secure, and deploy all that code.\n\n## Productivity gains meet workflow bottlenecks\nThe problem isn't AI itself. It's how software gets built today. The traditional DevSecOps lifecycle contains hundreds of small tasks that developers must navigate manually: updating tickets, running tests, requesting reviews, waiting for approvals, fixing merge conflicts, addressing security findings. These tasks drain an average of seven hours per week from every team member, according to our research.\n\nDevelopment teams are producing code faster than ever, but that code still crawls through fragmented toolchains, manual handoffs, and disconnected processes. In fact, 60% of DevSecOps teams use more than five tools for software development overall, and 49% use more than five AI tools. This fragmentation creates collaboration barriers, with 94% of DevSecOps professionals experiencing factors that limit collaboration in the software development lifecycle.\n\nThe answer isn't more tools. It's intelligent orchestration that brings software teams and their AI agents together across projects and release cycles, with enterprise-grade security, governance, and compliance built in.\n\n## Seeking deeper human-AI partnerships\nDevSecOps professionals don't want AI to take over — they want reliable partnerships. The vast majority (82%) say using agentic AI would increase their job satisfaction, and 43% envision an ideal future with a 50/50 split between human and AI contributions. They're ready to trust AI with 37% of their daily tasks without human review, particularly for documentation, test writing, and code reviews.\n\nWhat we heard resoundingly from DevSecOps professionals is that AI won't replace them; rather, it will fundamentally reshape their roles. 83% of DevSecOps professionals believe AI will significantly change their work within five years, and notably, 76% think this will create more engineering jobs, not fewer. As coding becomes easier with AI, engineers who can architect systems, ensure quality, and apply business context will be in high demand.\n\nCritically, 88% agree there are essential human qualities that AI will never fully replace, including creativity, innovation, collaboration, and strategic vision.\n\nSo how can organizations bridge the gap between AI’s promise and the reality of fragmented workflows?\n\n## Join us at GitLab Transcend: Explore how to drive real value with agentic AI\nOn February 10, 2026, GitLab will be hosting Transcend, where we'll reveal how intelligent orchestration transforms AI-powered software development. You'll get a first look at GitLab's upcoming product roadmap and learn how teams are solving real-world challenges by modernizing development workflows with AI.\n\nOrganizations winning in this new era balance AI adoption with security, compliance, and platform consolidation. AI offers genuine productivity gains when implemented thoughtfully — not by replacing human developers, but by freeing DevSecOps professionals to focus on strategic thinking and creative innovation.\n\n[Register for Transcend today](https://about.gitlab.com/events/transcend/virtual/) to secure your spot and discover how intelligent orchestration can help your software teams stay in flow.",[742,743,744],"AI/ML","DevOps platform","security",{"featured":28,"template":15,"slug":746},"ai-is-reshaping-devsecops-attend-gitlab-transcend-to-see-whats-next",{"content":748,"config":759},{"title":749,"description":750,"authors":751,"heroImage":753,"date":754,"body":755,"category":11,"tags":756},"Atlassian ending Data Center as GitLab maintains deployment choice","As Atlassian transitions Data Center customers to cloud-only, GitLab presents a menu of deployment choices that map to business needs.",[752],"Emilio Salvador","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098354/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%281%29_5XrohmuWBNuqL89BxVUzWm_1750098354056.png","2025-10-07","Change is never easy, especially when it's not your choice. Atlassian's announcement that [all Data Center products will reach end-of-life by March 28, 2029](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-ascend), means thousands of organizations must now reconsider their DevSecOps deployment and infrastructure. But you don't have to settle for deployment options that don't fit your needs. GitLab maintains your freedom to choose — whether you need self-managed for compliance, cloud for convenience, or hybrid for flexibility — all within a single AI-powered DevSecOps platform that respects your requirements.\n\nWhile other vendors force migrations to cloud-only architectures, GitLab remains committed to supporting the deployment choices that match your business needs. Whether you're managing sensitive government data, operating in air-gapped environments, or simply prefer the control of self-managed deployments, we understand that one size doesn't fit all.\n\n## The cloud isn't the answer for everyone\n\nFor the many companies that invested millions of dollars in Data Center deployments, including those that migrated to Data Center [after its Server products were discontinued](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/atlassian-server-ending-move-to-a-single-devsecops-platform/), this announcement represents more than a product sunset. It signals a fundamental shift away from customer-centric architecture choices, forcing enterprises into difficult positions: accept a deployment model that doesn't fit their needs, or find a vendor that respects their requirements.\n\nMany of the organizations requiring self-managed deployments represent some of the world's most important organizations: healthcare systems protecting patient data, financial institutions managing trillions in assets, government agencies safeguarding national security, and defense contractors operating in air-gapped environments.\n\nThese organizations don't choose self-managed deployments for convenience; they choose them for compliance, security, and sovereignty requirements that cloud-only architectures simply cannot meet. Organizations operating in closed environments with restricted or no internet access aren't exceptions — they represent a significant portion of enterprise customers across various industries.\n\n![GitLab vs. Atlassian comparison table](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1759928476/ynl7wwmkh5xyqhszv46m.jpg)\n\n## The real cost of forced cloud migration goes beyond dollars\n\nWhile cloud-only vendors frame mandatory migrations as \"upgrades,\" organizations face substantial challenges beyond simple financial costs:\n\n* **Lost integration capabilities:** Years of custom integrations with legacy systems, carefully crafted workflows, and enterprise-specific automations become obsolete. Organizations with deep integrations to legacy systems often find cloud migration technically infeasible.\n\n* **Regulatory constraints:** For organizations in regulated industries, cloud migration isn't just complex — it's often not permitted. Data residency requirements, air-gapped environments, and strict regulatory frameworks don't bend to vendor preferences. The absence of single-tenant solutions in many cloud-only approaches creates insurmountable compliance barriers.\n\n* **Productivity impacts:** Cloud-only architectures often require juggling multiple products: separate tools for planning, code management, CI/CD, and documentation. Each tool means another context switch, another integration to maintain, another potential point of failure. GitLab research shows [30% of developers spend at least 50% of their job maintaining and/or integrating their DevSecOps toolchain](https://about.gitlab.com/developer-survey/). Fragmented architectures exacerbate this challenge rather than solving it.\n\n## GitLab offers choice, commitment, and consolidation\n\nEnterprise customers deserve a trustworthy technology partner. That's why we've committed to supporting a range of deployment options — whether you need on-premises for compliance, hybrid for flexibility, or cloud for convenience, the choice remains yours. That commitment continues with [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo-agent-platform/), our AI solution that supports developers at every stage of their workflow.\n\nBut we offer more than just deployment flexibility. While other vendors might force you to cobble together their products into a fragmented toolchain, GitLab provides everything in a **comprehensive AI-native DevSecOps platform**. Source code management, CI/CD, security scanning, Agile planning, and documentation are all managed within a single application and a single vendor relationship.\n\nThis isn't theoretical. When Airbus and [Iron Mountain](https://about.gitlab.com/customers/iron-mountain/) evaluated their existing fragmented toolchains, they consistently identified challenges: poor user experience, missing functionalities like built-in security scanning and review apps, and management complexity from plugin troubleshooting. **These aren't minor challenges; they're major blockers for modern software delivery.**\n\n## Your migration path: Simpler than you think\n\nWe've helped thousands of organizations migrate from other vendors, and we've built the tools and expertise to make your transition smooth:\n\n* **Automated migration tools:** Our [Bitbucket Server importer](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/import/bitbucket_server/) brings over repositories, pull requests, comments, and even Large File Storage (LFS) objects. For Jira, our [built-in importer](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/import/jira/) handles issues, descriptions, and labels, with professional services available for complex migrations.\n\n* **Proven at scale:** A 500 GiB repository with 13,000 pull requests, 10,000 branches, and 7,000 tags is likely to [take just 8 hours to migrate](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/import/bitbucket_server/) from Bitbucket to GitLab using parallel processing.\n\n* **Immediate ROI:** A [Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/resources/study-forrester-tei-gitlab-ultimate/) found that investing in GitLab Ultimate confirms these benefits translate to real bottom-line impact, with a three-year 483% ROI, 5x time saved in security related activities, and 25% savings in software toolchain costs.\n\n## Start your journey to a unified DevSecOps platform\n\nForward-thinking organizations aren't waiting for vendor-mandated deadlines. They're evaluating alternatives now, while they have time to migrate thoughtfully to platforms that protect their investments and deliver on promises.\n\nOrganizations invest in self-managed deployments because they need control, compliance, and customization. When vendors deprecate these capabilities, they remove not just features but the fundamental ability to choose environments matching business requirements.\n\nModern DevSecOps platforms should offer complete functionality that respects deployment needs, consolidates toolchains, and accelerates software delivery, without forcing compromises on security or data sovereignty.\n\n[Talk to our sales team](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/) today about your migration options, or explore our [comprehensive migration resources](https://about.gitlab.com/move-to-gitlab-from-atlassian/) to see how thousands of organizations have already made the switch.\n\nYou also can [try GitLab Ultimate with GitLab Duo Enterprise](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/devsecops/) for free for 30 days to see what a unified DevSecOps platform can do for your organization.",[574,567,757,758],"product","features",{"featured":28,"template":15,"slug":760},"atlassian-ending-data-center-as-gitlab-maintains-deployment-choice",{"promotions":762},[763,777,788,799],{"id":764,"categories":765,"header":767,"text":768,"button":769,"image":774},"ai-modernization",[766],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":770,"config":771},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":772,"dataGaName":773,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":775},{"src":776},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":778,"categories":779,"header":780,"text":768,"button":781,"image":785},"devops-modernization",[757,11],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":782,"config":783},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":784,"dataGaName":773,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":786},{"src":787},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":789,"categories":790,"header":791,"text":768,"button":792,"image":796},"security-modernization",[744],"Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":793,"config":794},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":795,"dataGaName":773,"dataGaLocation":245},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":797},{"src":798},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"id":800,"paths":801,"header":804,"text":805,"button":806,"image":811},"github-azure-migration",[802,803],"migration-from-azure-devops-to-gitlab","integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab","Is your team ready for GitHub's Azure move?","GitHub is already rebuilding around Azure. Find out what it means for you.",{"text":807,"config":808},"See how GitLab compares to GitHub",{"href":809,"dataGaName":810,"dataGaLocation":245},"/compare/gitlab-vs-github/github-azure-migration/","github azure migration",{"config":812},{"src":787},{"header":814,"blurb":815,"button":816,"secondaryButton":821},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":817,"config":818},"Get your free trial",{"href":819,"dataGaName":52,"dataGaLocation":820},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":508,"config":822},{"href":56,"dataGaName":57,"dataGaLocation":820},1777493612753]